Johann Michael August Adelmann

JOHANN MICHAEL AUGUST “GUS” ADELMANN WAS BORN in Gamburg, Germany on November 27, 1838. Gus emigrated to the United States in July 1859 and was naturalized in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin on November 5, 1860.

The earliest proof of his residency in Nevada is seen in 1877, where in the March 17 edition of the Pioche Record, a legal notice alerts readers to the sale of F.W. Clute’s butchering business to Gus. He marries Catharine Mack on April 22, 1878 in Pioche, and by June 1879 had dissolved the “People’s Market” business he started with L.V. Loomis, although he continues to operate it by himself. Gus is also an active member of the Pioche International Order of Oddfellows and served as an officer of that organization.

Gus moves to Reno about 1895 and he and Catherine divorce shortly after. By 1900, he is living in DeLamar and is working as a laborer. The October 12, 1901 edition of the Tonopah Bonanza reports that Gus was a late arrival into camp on the stage from Delamar.

After only three months in camp, Gus contracts the dreaded pneumonia so many of the town’s residents were succumbing to, and suffers for five days before dying on January 29, 1902. His obituary notes that “loving friends tenderly nursed and cared for him, but all for aught.” Gus was buried under the auspices of the Tonopah Odd Fellows lodge the day after his death and was lauded as “a noble man whose demise will be mourned by all his acquaintances.” Two grown sons and a daughter survived him in Lincoln County. It is worth noting that Mrs. Louisa Bawden was one of the passengers on the stage when he arrived in Tonopah and an obituary printed in the Pioche Record reports that she nursed him during the day while he was ill, while his colleagues in the Odd Fellows took over at night.

Unfortunately, like so many others, Gus’ grave was not recorded on the cemetery map and is not marked.